Tax collections will exceed Rs 17 lakh crore: Jaitley

New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) Despite the impact of demonetisation, Indian tax collections this fiscal will exceeed budgetary estimates, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday.

Replying to the debate on the Finance Bill in the Lok Sabha, Jaitley referred to an opposition member’s fears of lower tax collections and said the actual collections by the end of the fiscal would go past even the revised estimates.

“Tax collections have been on the increase in the last few years. We had set a direct and indirect tax collection of Rs 16.25 lakh crore for the current fiscal, which was revised upwards to Rs 17 lakh crore. We will achieve this record target by the end of whatever little remains of the fiscal,” he said.

“The collection target for next year has been set at Rs 19,05,000 crore. Rs 9.8 lakh crore is estimated to come from direct taxes while Rs 9.25 lakh crore from indirect taxes,” he added.

The minister said his optimism on taxes was based on the “transformation” of indirect taxes expected to be set in motion through the proposed pan-India Good and Services Tax (GST), which is slated to be implemented from July 1.